If At First You Don't Succeed
by TwistingKaleidoscope
Summary: Sometimes what is wished for isn't truly the best.


**Disclaimed. **

**Author's Note: **This is the start of what I hope to become a series, if you readers like it. Please comment and tell me if you think I should continue. _Please, please, please _take note of the quotations marks at the beginning and end of this chapter. If you don't the next chapter might be a little confusing. _This_ chapter is one of Cammie's journals. Please remember that.

**Summary: **Sometimes what is wished for isn't truly the best.

* * *

"**Things to Do Over Winter Break After A Crazy  
**(Which is saying something if you go to a school like me)  
**Half-Semester At School:**

• Forget.

The irony was not lost on me as I had spent several months trying to get my memory back only to want to forget. I had wished it was: lost on me, that is. And it might have been had it not been for my aunt's blatant stares at the dark circles beneath my eyes and knowing looks as I passed her in the hallways or leaving the CoveOps (for lack of a better term) classroom.

There were things I should've been glad to know, like how my father's body was finally where it should be: in the town where he had grown up, buried beneath the marker that bore his name. But I wasn't. My father was dead; the fact that I had not wanted to believe for years was finally proven. I was not given any solace, however. No comfort was provided to me by that knowledge as I thought it would. I just knew, and nothing was okay, not anymore.

Maybe nothing was okay to begin with.

My bags sat on the edge of my bed as my roommates rushed to finish packing their most important items that lay strewn across the room. My bags were packed though, because I never really had unpacked them.

I sat, beside my bags, not knowing where I was going next and not caring to. I learned many things in my eighteen years of life, but one of the most important is that, sometimes, it's okay not to know things. The saddest fact about that, though, is that I learned that just a little too late.

Numbly, I stood up from my resting position. I noticed my roommates shift towards me from the corners of my eyes, worried about my next move. I couldn't truly blame them because the last time they had left me alone I had tried to jump off the roof of the Gallagher Academy (but I was under hypnosis, don't blame me!), but sometimes a girl just needs a little time to herself. Especially a Gallagher Girl.

I reassured them that I would be fine, that I was just going to scrounge up some pre-trip snacks (leftovers from last night's farewell dinner) and after an intense psychoanalysis (by Liz!, of all people), I was allowed to go. I rolled my eyes at my friends, thankful but a little annoyed, and walked away. In the hallways, girls were scurrying from room to room as if they had left or forgotten something, but it was pointless because Gallagher Girls don't forget things.

Unless you're me. And then you'll find you're an exception to many rules.

I wandered around, going everywhere and nowhere at once. I yawned, too tired to pretend I was okay and slowly let my cover drop just as I slid into a passageway that would take me to the kitchen. I stopped midway through the tunnel and slid to the ground. I didn't think, just sat there, relishing in the quiet and the absence of questions such as "How are you?" or "Are you okay?".

Remember that, in the future, whenever a girl has been poked and prodded, beaten and battered, lost and found, and hurt, mentally and physically, as much as I have, that's the last question they want to hear. Because, chances are, they've heard it enough: from kinda-boyfriends to one-time-teachers-who-went-on-a-kinda-mission-with-you-once-and-might-be-interested-in-your-aunt (and that's the scariest thing I've thought all year).

Finally, after a time in which I might have dozed off to sleep, I stood and continued my way to the kitchen before popping in and stealing some of Chef Louis's delicious creations and returning to the safety of my passageway. Really, I wasn't stealing. Chef Louis had always had a soft spot for me and had always given me some extra treats whenever he saw me, especially this year. If I would've stayed around and asked, he surely would've given me and my friends plenty to go around, but this way was simpler because I wouldn't have to hear one of those aforementioned questions.

When I left the passageway, I was met by my favorite teacher, leaning casually against the wall. He didn't look startled to see me and I knew that he must have been waiting.

With one hand, I balanced the goodies and the other I slung my knotted and wild hair to the side in an attempt to tame it. Let me tell you: tunnels don't do a thing for your hair, even when Macey McHenry herself fixed your hair to perfection (or as close as someone like me could get) and sprayed an entire bottle of hairspray on it. A bottle that I wasn't sure was even legal in some parts of the world.

He looked healthier, standing there in the empty hallway as sunlight poured down on him through the large windows. But when I looked at him, I could only think of who he had been the month before: a shadow of a broken man, lying on a bed, not dead but definitely not alive. I swallowed the lump that had developed in my throat and looked away.

A pair of freshmen passed us, ignoring me but blatantly staring at the very, very attractive man by my side. He seemed unfazed as if a pair of teenage girls ogling him was a daily occurrence, and I blinked as I remembered it was. But that was before.

And I realized only then why the freshmen had regarded him with such a curiosity because they had never seen him before. And then I looked at my teacher, one of the smartest people I knew, and wondered why the ghosts of the Gallagher Academy were wandering the halls where they could be seen by anyone.

But then I remembered, because once, I had been a ghost too. I had been a shadow that people passed through. He just wanted to be seen, as I had, because everyone gets lonely sometimes. He had gone through the same things that I had in the past few months, and I dared to think that he had gone through worse. But before all of this started, we were different people. I was the ghost roaming in the hallways and, only now, do I realize that it's better than the spotlight.

In the empty, silent hallway, there were many things that I could have said, but most of the things that had come to mind were better left unsaid. However, as the silence, thick and heavy, encircled me, I opened my mouth. "Does she know you're up?" I referred to my mother, who I heard had forbidden Mr. Solomon to leave the bed after he collapsed the last time.

He shrugged, almost carelessly, and yet again, I was reminded of how much he was like me.

And that was how we ended up in my favorite tower, the highest one in the Gallagher Academy, which overlooked Roseville, but more importantly, the perfectly manicured grounds of my school. Limos lined the driveway as girls of all shapes and sizes loaded up and left. I watched them go as I sat on the old, dusty window seat with my palm pressed against the glass.

I was well aware of the fact that I was not alone, but I could think of nothing to say. Finally, I just settled on, "I don't think I'm coming back here." I looked to him as I said this and watched as he blinked at my unexpected words. He stared at me in silence, and I felt urged to proceed. "I'm not planning on running away again," I looked over out the window again, this time to the ivy-covered walls and the wrought iron gate. If I was younger and less jaded, I would consider it beautiful, but now all I could see in it was the scars of my past and the uncertainty of my present.

"I just don't think I'll ever see this again." I finally finished, admitting my darkest fear. My voice didn't crack, but it just as well had. The weakness should have been embarrassing, but I felt nothing because of it. He's seen me at worse. I didn't turn to face him this time, but in the reflection of the window, I saw him swallow and study me. I looked past the reflection though and into the town of Roseville, remembering Josh and all that I had lost.

Finally, I had to look away from Roseville and all that it was, and I turned to rest the back of my head against the cool glass. I closed my eyes to block away images of my life, but opened then when I heard the soft sound of the seat beside me squeaking as he sat down beside me. I looked to him, the smartest man I knew, the best spy I had ever met. "I'm not coming back."

I heard the gasp, but didn't locate it as my own. I blinked, staring at him. "Why?"

"The Board doesn't want-"

"_You_?" But I stopped myself there. There were times when there was too much to be said and others when there could never be little enough. He didn't dare to look in my direction, but I could not stop myself from staring at him. He said nothing, but I understood everything. "What about Mom?"

He smiled, faintly and a little sadly. "It has never been _that _way, Cam. No matter what Abby may believe. Matthew was the only thing that kept us from killing each other way back when. Things have changed since then, Cammie, but only a little."

I looked away, very embarrassed. "What about _us_?" His eyes turned to me. "Your students. Without you, we, your students, would not be half as good as we are now. I wouldn't hear the footsteps coming up the staircase or know that your fingerprints have been left on four different places." I stood and walked towards the door as it creaked open. "I wouldn't understand this life, without you."

My roommates stood at the doorway, curiously looking between us.

"Have a good break, Mr. Soloman." I called over my shoulder. I didn't dare to look back. This wouldn't be the final time I saw him.

"Keep yourself safe, Ms. Morgan." I blinked, scattering my tears at the finality in his voice. I couldn't stop myself this time. I looked back at him. At the man I never really knew, never truly understood.

At the man I thought I would never see again.

And I walked away."


End file.
